


lonely weekend (not alone anymore)

by ofsinnersandsaints



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Happy/sad, and a good fight, and keyleth needing a good friend, grog being a good friend, grogleth, post Dalen's Closet, so if you haven't seen that there are spoilers in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 11:43:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20527481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofsinnersandsaints/pseuds/ofsinnersandsaints
Summary: It's been five years since Percy and Vex's vow renewal and the anniversary of Vax's death is still a hard time for Keyleth, but it's been getting easier - and it's nice to have Grog around as a distraction, and so she doesn't feel quite so alone.





	lonely weekend (not alone anymore)

The thing Keyleth hated the most was the old bards were right; time did heal all wounds, even if she didn’t want some wounds to heal.

It had been five years since the snowdrops, five years since she’d said goodbye to Vax, and the wound had begun to scab over and scar. And it terrified her because there was a good deal amount of guilt in the healing, because an irrational part of her heart thought when it stopped hurting, he stopped mattering.

But Vax was gone.

She’d gotten to say goodbye to him twice now; and the last time? It had felt like cleansing a wound- painful, but necessary. It had helped that he wasn’t completely the same man she had said goodbye to that terrible, victorious day.

The same way she had changed and evolved since their separation, he had changed as well.

They were no longer the same people they had been when they parted and it was foolish to keep herself frozen, as if preserving herself for the possibility he might come back because he wasn’t coming back, and there were living things which needed her time and attention.

Vox Machina, and their ever extending family, the Air Ashari, and- “Grog!”

From across the grove the big man stopped what he was doing, trying and spectacularly failing at looking innocent with a stick the size of a small tree in his hand.

“What are you doing?” Keyleth demanded as she walked towards him.

“Nothing.”

“So that stick in your hand, and in the hands of,” she looked at the small group of children surrounding him who were also holding sticks, “Six other children is not for fighting?”

“Nah, why would you think that?”

Keyleth bit back a laugh, but couldn’t help a smile.

Grog had come to the tribe a few days ago, saying that Pike and Scanlan were off on a trip for their anniversary so he’d decided to come visit her.

She was pretty sure he’d come because he was bored, but she hadn’t turned him away because he’d come at just the right moment. If she trusted to the gods to do anything but screw with the lives of mere mortals, she’d have thought they sent him to her because she’d been lonely.

Keyleth put on her best teacher voice as she looked at the group of kids who had been sent to learn from her. “Let’s put the sticks down and get back to our lessons.”

“Boring,” Grog immediately quipped back.

This time she did laugh, shaking her head as she took the piece of wood out of Grog’s hands. The weight of it nearly toppled her over. “Good grief, Grog. How heavy is this thing?”

“Not that heavy,” he shrugged, taking it back and tossing it off to the side. “Put’em down guys. We’ll continue sparring later when the boring teacher isn’t around.”

Kelyeth put her hands on hips and tried to look every inch the imposing and intimidating Voice of the Tempest, but it was very hard to do when the person you were trying to intimidate had seen you drunk and arrested at a fighting pit.

“I’m not boring.”

“You’re talking about flowers,” he drawled, having learned her schedule quickly since arriving. “How interesting can that be?”

She thought about her answer for all of a second before tilting her head. “Why don’t you hang around and tell me?”

“You want me to learn about flowers?” and he sounded so incredulous she almost laughed again.

“You’re learning aren’t you,” she challenged, half aware of the six kids watching them with rapt attention. He’d been working with Pike on his writing and reading, Percy with math. “This is one more thing you can learn. If you’re not interested, I guess we’ll just kill and destroy these plants by ourselves. Leila, will you get the knives?”

“Knives?” Grog asked, his brows lowering and Keyleth knew she had him.

The truth was that when compared to sparring and fighting and defeating actual gods, horticulture _was_ rather boring, but Grog seemed to determined to stick it out even though he was practically vibrating with excess energy.

He’d obviously rather be doing anything else but he was semi-patiently listening to her talk about cutting blooms and then she sent the children off to their next lesson but saw Grog hadn’t moved from his spot on the ground next to the tall green stalks which would eventually bloom orange.

“Grog?”

“I don’t get it.”

He was staring at the closed blooms, all but ready to burst open. “Don’t get what?”

“Why do you cut the flowers?” he asked, looking up at her. “Don’t you want them to bloom?”

“I do,” she answered and knelt down next to him. “That’s why we cut them.”

“I don’t get it.”

Keyleth twisted the ring on her right hand around her finger, and even though it was impossible, most days she would swear she could feel the engraving on her skin: _I have passed through fire._

“When you pinch the stem you stimulate growth in the plants,” Keyleth shifted, close enough her shoulder nearly touched his. She loved the smell of the freshly turned earth, and just underneath she could smell the familiar scent of Grog’s sweat and skin.

The combination shifted something underneath her skin, a feeling she quickly folded up and tucked away with everything else she wasn’t ready to deal with.

“Take these orange halos,” she shifted a little closer to him so she could find a budding blossom. “This one stem will bloom a single blossom, but if we pinch it,” she did it as she said it, tucking the bud into the pocket of her dress out of habit, “Then this one stem breaks off to many more and we get more blossoms out of it.”

“So hurting it now means it’ll be capable of more later?”

Keyleth sighed and heard the emotion in the sound, crossing her arms to protect herself from everything which had already damaged her. “Yeah, something like that.”

Grog put his big on her shoulders and the weight of it was like an anchor, something to focus on amidst the maelstrom of emotion. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

She waved away his concern, “Everything makes me sad this time of the year.”

“Yeah,” he mumbled, dropping his hand. “That’s kind of why I came.”

The admission surprised her and she was speechless for a solid three seconds as she stared at him. “I thought you were just bored and climbing up a mountain sounded like fun.”

“Well, you’re not wrong.” He shifted and sat down in the dirt beside her, legs crossed. “But Vex can’t travel cause she’s pregnant, and Pike is off on her fifth honeymoon with Scanlan. Didn’t seem right for you to be alone.”

Keyleth’s fingers twisted together on her lap. “You could have said.”

“Didn’t want to make it awkward.”

With a chuckle she bumped her shoulder with his. “I appreciate it, but we both know if a situation is going to be awkward it’s going to be because of me, not you.”

He laughed and together they just sat there and it was oddly companionable until he asked, “Do you miss it?”

“Miss what?”

“Vox Machina.”

Keyleth knew he wasn’t talking about the group, he was talking about the way they were. The fighting and the running and the endless worry about what was coming next. “Yes.”

Grog nodded and picked up a blade of grass, twirling the blade around his fingers, “Me too.”

Keyleth thought that was it, and was prepared to get up and walk back to her duties, but then she heard Grog continue, his voice overly casual. “There’s a clan at the bottom of the mountain, going about the local villages, causing mischief and mayhem.”

It didn’t take her more than a second to connect the dots, to realize what he was suggesting. “You can’t be serious.”

He shrugged but she saw a spark of something in his eyes which kindled something in her which had long been dormant. “How many?”

“Fifteen,” he answered, quick. He’d long since been able to count past his fingers and toes. “Only about ten of them would put up a fight though. More than enough to make it interesting.”

“I can’t,” she argued even as she wanted to yes. “I have to- I’m needed here.”

“Bullshit, Kiki.”

The callout was so immediate she laughed. “Excuse me?”

“They can take care of themselves for an afternoon, a day. Didn’t your dad lead them for years while you were out fucking around with us?”

“It wasn’t fucking around,” she reminded him, “It was saving the world.”

He shrugged and she wondered if there wasn’t much of a difference for him; after all, it was all different kinds of the same fight. “Point stands. I think he could hold the reins for a minute, don’t you think?”

Keyleth had been tempted very few times in her life; but she was tempted now.

He nudged her with his elbow as if sensing she was close to giving in, and nearly toppled her over in the process. “Come on, you know you want to.”

She did.

“Fine,” she gave in and Grog clapped his hands together once. “One day, that’s it. If we can’t take care of this in one day, we come back.”

He waved away her concern as if wasn’t a big deal. “Don’t worry about it, it’s just pest control. Nothing too difficult for the likes of us.”

She liked that he put her at the same level as him, but at the same time… “You don’t think we’ll need any help?”

“I’ve got my axe,” he told her. “And you can still turn into a flame, right?”

She could turn into many things, but it had been so long since she’d stretched those particular muscles she briefly wondered if she could still do it. Of course she could, she mentally admonished herself, those weren’t the kinds of things a person could forget. “I can.”

“Then we’re set,” he got up to his feet and held out his hand to her. “You coming, Tempest?”

She smiled at the nickname, something he’d picked up and started using after Vex and Percy’s vow renewal. Thankfully ‘Chief T’ hadn’t quite stuck.

“Yeah, Strongjaw. I’m coming,” Keyleth reached out and clasped her hand with his and allowed him to pull her to her feet.

“Fucking-A.”

Fighting in a duo was vastly different experience than in a large group.

As she and Grog huddled in the trees a few hundred feet from the group of marauders there was a brief ache in her ribs because this was the point Vax would have gone ahead to see what was what.

“We don’t need to fucking scout ahead,” Grog complained when she suggested it. “We’ll so just go in swinging.”

“That sounds dangerous,” Keyleth warned.

He turned on his toes, meeting her eyes in the shaded light beneath the tree canopy. “You scared, Keyleth?”

She glared at him, fully aware he was essentially double-dog daring her and while she should be mature enough to refuse such a taunt-she was the Voice of the Tempest after all- she couldn’t quite manage it. “Fuck you, Grog.”

His grin was feral and wicked. “That’s the spirit. I’ll take the left, you flank from the right, yeah?”

She nodded and wished she could steal some of his confidence because she was so uncertain in these woods, her staff in her hands and her mantle on her shoulders. This was a world she’d once felt comfortable in, but it was like swimming after years of being in the desert.

Keyleth was no longer certain she could keep herself from drowning.

But Grog had every confidence in her if his wink before shuffling off into the darkness was anything to go by.

They’d agree to wait a minute, and it was a testament to how they’d all grown and evolved that Grog knew exactly how long that was. Keyleth counted down the last few seconds, 55…56…57…58… and thought about which spell she would use first.

And while she debated Grog tore through the underbrush, axe in hand, already raging and swung at the first person he encountered.

Somehow, that was all she needed.

In a world that had changed and shifted beneath her feet, Grog was something to hold on to, someone familiar and steady.

She knew that rage, she knew what damage it could unleash and spurned on by the flash of blood she stepped out of the shadows and pulled lightning from the sky, the crack of the thunder following from the clear sky above.

Grog looked up and over her, his grin pure pride. “Fuck yeah, Kiki!”

And suddenly she remembered.

She remembered how to move and the spells she’d use and the blood in her veins pumped quicker, adrenaline reaching every nerve in her body.

Suddenly she was no longer the Voice of the Tempest, but Keyleth of Vox Machina, warrior and hero of Emon, savior of Vasselheim.

And she was ready for a fight.

Grog took out one man, his axe burying itself into another’s chest and Keyleth sent a bolt of lightning to finish the man off.

Together they moved through the crowds, Grog using his rage and Keyleth using her magic to tear down the enemy. There wasn’t time to grieve in the middle of a fight; there wasn’t time to think of any aching, yawning chasm inside her.

The entire world had shrunk down to this place, this clearing, with Grog and her in a kind of dance.

When she turned with her staff, prepared to shoot magic out of it, she found nothing to hit.

“That’s it?” she asked, surprised to see no one had been left standing.

“A couple ran off when things got hairy,” Grog answered as he dragged a body to the middle of the clearing. “We can go after them if you want, but I figure if they’re not willing to fight us they’re not going to cause any problems for the locals.”

Keyleth agreed and looked around the damage done, Grog standing next to her. “Shit, that was fun.”

“It really was,” she agreed, feeling invigorated for the first time in months.

She loved being the Voice of the Tempest, she loved leading her people and helping them, but by the gods she’d missed the fight.

It would have gone much quicker if she’d turned into a dragon, or a beholder, but when she’d stood with Grog against a dozen barbarians she’d made the decision to only do so if her or Grog’s lives were in immediate danger.

She’d wanted the fight to last.

The battle had taken all of five minutes for her and Grog to cut through them; Keyleth had used her spells and enjoyed watching Grog rage as he used his old axe to slowly cut the enemy down.

It hadn’t been like old times; instead it was something different, it was something new.

And she didn’t hate it.

“I’ll-What the fuck?”

Keyleth followed Grog’s gaze to the raven perched a few feet above them, and her heart clenched painfully at the sight of it. “That’s the raven.”

“_The_ raven?” Grog asked.

“It comes by,” Keyleth tried to explain, remembering Grog hadn’t been part of that quiet conversation between her Vax on the cliffs. “It used to be every day, then Scanlan brought Vax back for the wedding and ever since then it’s been less common.”

“Is it Vax?”

Leave it to Grog to ask the pointed question she’d been avoiding thinking of for half a decade. “No,” she answered honestly. “I mean, at first I thought maybe it was, but I didn’t know for sure.”

“You didn’t ask it,” Grog asked, clearly confused. “You can speak to animals, couldn’t you have just gone up to it and say ‘Hey Vax’ and see what it did?”

It was a simple enough thing to do; one of the first spells she’d learned was talking to animals, but her entire body froze at the idea. “I couldn’t.”

“You couldn’t?” he asked, surprised.

“Wouldn’t,” she admitted. “I thought about it every single day and every single day I froze.”

“Why?”

“Because what if it wasn’t him?” Keyleth answered because the question had been earnest. “As long as I didn’t know, there was hope. As soon as I asked, that was gone too.”

“Okay,” Grog nodded once and bent down to investigate the bodies, probably seeing if they had anything valuable on them.

Keyleth stared at the top of his head, confused by his reaction. “Okay? That’s it?”

“Yeah?” He looked up, and Keyleth could almost look directly into his eyes from his squatted position. “Why, did you want me to make you feel bad for not asking?”

“I guess I would have expected everyone else to.”

“Pike wouldn’t,” he corrected her automatically, because in Grog’s eyes his buddy could do no wrong. “But, hey, if you wanted the question to be unanswered who I am to tell you otherwise?”

Keyleth knelt down next to him, “It’s not cowardly?”

“It’s grief.”

Keyleth looked past Grog to where she could just barely see the raven in the tree. “We never had ravens here before, so it was either the craziest coincidence in the history of coincidences or… But after seeing him? I think it’s a version of him watching out for us. Not _him_, but maybe from the other side he can send the ravens like messengers and they go out and check on us and report back so he knows we’re okay.”

“And are you?” Grog asked softly. “Okay, I mean.”

“Not all days,” she admitted but smiled at him. “But today I’m doing better than okay. Today I’m doing great.” She reached out and put her hand over his, “Thank you, Grog.”

“Thank _you_,” he grinned down at her. “I haven’t had fun like that in too fucking long.”

“Are you going to tell Pike?” she asked as he moved to the next body.

He shrugged. “Could be our little secret.”

Something warm sparked to life behind Keyleth’s ribs, and she realized just how cold she’d been the past couple of years. “Vex and Percy did get married without telling anyone, and this isn’t nearly as serious as that.”

“Just a little afternoon outing,” he agreed, the pact curving the edges of his lips in a conspiratorial smile. “It’s not like they tell us what they do day in and day out.”

She broke into a grin and got up to follow him as he investigated each body. “And if we were to do it again? Just to keep the area safe, I mean.”

He stood up and rested his hands on his hips. “You know how to find me.”

“And how to get to you.”

He nodded once then looked over at the raven, “We’re good here. Tell Vax I’m watching out for her.”

The raven tilted its head as if trying to understand then gave a cheerful caw and flew off, Keyleth watched it until it was too far gone to see.

“Do you still have the jug?”

“Yeah, why, you want some mayonnaise?”

Keyleth laughed and shook her head, “No. But I am thinking that today is a day for remembering the past and it has been too long since I’ve gotten drunk.”

“Oh gods, you’re a terrible drunk, Keyleth.”

She crossed her arms, insulted. “I’m in charge here, they can’t arrest me for anything.”

“First off, that’s the best reason I’ve ever heard for being in charge of something, and secondly, that’s not what I meant. You get fucking loud. How ‘bout a compromise? I bring out the jug, you get a little tipsy, and then we fight.”

“You want to fight me?”

“Me versus you in your earth form.”

“Yeah, okay, I could be into that.”

“Awesome. Here,” he held out his hand Keyleth looked down to see a pretty little chain between his big fingers.

“What’s this?”

“A lizard,” he answered dryly. “It’s a necklace, was on the big guy. It doesn’t go with my outfit so I thought you’d want it.”

“It belongs to someone,” she reminded him, but the necklace was incredibly lovely.

“Sure, let’s just go to every village in a fifty mile radius and ask everyone if they know who it belongs to.”

“Well, when you put it that way.”

She took the necklace and hooked the clasp on the back of neck, the weight of the little pendant hitting her sternum. “Thanks.”

He made a noncommittal noise, “I’m thinking I can knock you back down to Keyleth size because you knock me out.”

“Unlikely,” Keyleth said as she walked towards a tree big enough to get them home.

“You can’t switch back and forth,” he warned her. “One shape change, none of the druid bullshit.”

“It’ll be a fair fight,” she promised as she touched the tree. “But do you want to make it interesting?”

Grog stepped through the tree and Keyleth followed him, both of them arriving on the top of the mountain within moments of each other. “What were you thinking?”

“A bet.”

“Have you ever won a bet?”

“There’s a first time for everything,” she admitted, touching the pendant and swinging it back and forth on the chain as they walked side by side. “Whoever loses has to try and steal Percy’s gun.”

“That’s a suicide mission,” Grog pointed out, then held out his hand to Keyleth. “It’s a deal.”

“Man, I’m going to kick your ass,” Keyleth promised, shaking his hand as Grog laughed.

Behind her, there was the sound of wings flapping and Keyleth thought it might be the raven coming back, but she didn’t turn to around to check as Grog began to explain how badly she would be at taking the gun.

Instead, Keyleth just laughed and kept on walking.


End file.
